(1 of )FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017 file photo, people are checked by security guards before entering GUM, State Shop, at Red square in Moscow, Russia. Moscow is grappling with a slew of fake bomb calls that have prompted the evacuation of shopping malls, schools, railway stations and administrative buildings. The Tass news agency says there were over 100 anonymous bomb warnings in Moscow on Friday, Oct. 6, 2017. No explosives have been found. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, file)

(2 of )FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017 file photo, a police car is parked in front of the GUM, State Shop, at Red square in Moscow, Russia. Moscow is grappling with a slew of fake bomb calls that have prompted the evacuation of shopping malls, schools, railway stations and administrative buildings. The Tass news agency says there were over 100 anonymous bomb warnings in Moscow on Friday, Oct. 6, 2017. No explosives have been found.(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

Moscow faces 130 fake bomb calls, evacuates 100,000 people

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ASSOCIATED PRESS | October 6, 2017

MOSCOW — Moscow on Friday faced over 130 fake bomb calls that prompted the evacuation of some 100,000 people from airports, shopping malls, schools, railway stations and office buildings.

Among those targeted by the bomb calls were all four Moscow airports, five railway stations, 15 shopping malls, several hotels, more than 20 schools and many other venues, the state Tass news agency said. No explosives have been found in the anonymous calls.

It was the latest and the most massive flurry of fake bomb threats since a wave of bomb hoaxes began in early September. The fake bomb threats have affected dozens of Russian cities and incurred massive economic damages.

Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main KGB successor, said Thursday the agency had tracked down four people suspected of engineering the wave of hoaxes.

Bortnikov said the suspects were Russians living abroad who had accomplices inside the country, but he wouldn't identify them or describe their motives. He added that the perpetrators were using internet connections to make the calls, making them hard to identify.

Russian media have speculated that the fake calls might have been launched from neighboring Ukraine, which has been angry with Russia for its support of separatists in eastern Ukraine, or staged by other Kremlin foes. There has been no evidence to back any of the theories, however.